The Mississippi in the Civil War Message Board

Re: Military Records
In Response To: Military Records ()

David --

This is an interesting argument --

National Archives collection of Confederate records are not exactly useless, but might as well be. If I understand, you feel that their collections of military records may be disregarded because information in them is generally false, misleading or inaccurate.

Confederate military leaders like Nathan B. Forrest and Robert E. Lee must not have been very wise or discerning. Sadly, they based decisions on the false, misleading and inaccurate information presented in these inspection reports.

Maybe that's the real reason the Confederacy lost the war.

For similar reasons, you seem to be saying that we can't trust information found in military service files. Your argument here is that missing records that may or may not have ever existed are much more important than the ones actually found in service files.

We already know that the men who wrote diaries, letters, newspaper accounts and personal memoirs left out some facts, exaggerated others and deliberately lied now and then. I guess we can't use those, either. Aside from personal experiences, we're not left with much else that's useful for understanding history.

David, if you really believe that most information generated by the military is mostly 'worthless' and 'useless', why waste so much time debating any of it here?

Bottom line, people will believe what people want to believe. I'll not argue with you about that.

Messages In This Thread

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Private Weapons
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Re: PFD
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Military Records
Re: Military Records
Re: Military Records
Re: Military Records
Re: Military Records
News & Views?
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Re: Inspection Reports of Mississippi Brigades?
Re: Inspection Report, Harris' Mississippi Brigade
Re: News & Views?
Re: News & Views?
Re: News & Views?